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The Basic Processes of Livelihood Reconstruction
The fundamental question to answer now is if the resettlement model can help predict and diagnose the risks of displacement, can it also guide problem resolution?
The answer is affirmative. The risks and reconstruction model complements its risk diagnosis with an explicit framework for the socioeconomic reestablishment of those displaced. The model is not just a predictor of inescapable pauperization; it is a guide toward counteracting the risks and resolving the problems that displacement creates. The risk model has to be read "in reverse," turned on its head, and thus it maps the way for reconstructing the livelihoods of those displaced, as will be shown further.
Risk Reversals: The Model as Self-Destroying Prophecy
Robert K. Merton has convincingly demonstrated that the prediction of an undesirable outcome may act as a "self-destroying prophecy" (Merton 1979). It follows that a risk prediction model becomes maximally useful not when it is confirmed by adverse events, but, rather, when, as a result of its warnings being taken seriously and acted upon, the risks are prevented from becoming reality, or are minimized, and the consequences predicted by the model do not occur. The predictive-cum-planning capacity of the impoverishment risks and reconstruction model results from the forewarning virtue of the knowledge "packaged" in it. This is how the IRR model "contributes" towards destroying its own prophecy.
Risk recognition is crucial for sound planning. More than offering a general warning, the proposed model serves as matrix for on-the-ground assessment of how the general risks would vary in each local context. It helps identify the specific configurations of displacement risks for each given population. Such on-the-ground risk assessments can-and, in fact, must-lead directly to the planning of counter-risk activities. Use of this model as a tool for project preparation and actual planning of resettlement has been already reported from the field.[12]
As mentioned earlier, the internal logic of the IRR model suggests that to prevent and overcome the patterns of impoverishment it is necessary to act in time to attack the risks and stop them from becoming reality. Risk identification is not an exercise carried out for academic purposes: it is carried out to design for action, for risk-reversal.
Reversing the risk model indicates which directions the action for safeguarding, reconstruction, and development should take. For instance, to prevent landlessness in the wake of displacement, land-based resettlement must be conceived before displacement even begins (relying on options that are likely to fit local land-contingencies). To prevent homelessness, the house-reconstruction program can and must also be designed in advance; it would include not a single method but rather various approaches acceptable to resettlers; and so on.
To formulate this idea more generally, we can say that the IRR model conveys two basic messages: a policy message and a strategy message.
The major policy message embodied in the model is that the general risk pattern inherent in displacement can be controlled through a policy response that mandates and finances integrated problem resolution. But this pattern of interlocked risks cannot be controlled by piecemeal palliatives.
The strategy message embodied in the model is that specific resettlement programs (plans) are required each time, in order to build the bridge from the general risk model to the particular resettlement circumstances and to mobilize concerted actions by interested institutions and social groups. Single means-for instance, just cash compensation-do not respond to all risks. Compensation alone is not a substitute for the absence of strategy and full-fledged resettlement programs.
While it is incumbent upon the state to pursue a policy of recovery and allocate needed resources-financial, organizational, technical, etc.-it would be unrealistic to conceive of reconstruction only as a top-down, paternalistic effort, without the participation and initiative of the displaced people themselves. The required strategy is not a one-actor strategy, for the state alone; rather, it is an all-actors strategy. Despite the polarized situation to be expected a displacement context, the participation of all relevant actors (resettlers, local leaders, non-governmental organizations, host populations) in reconstruction is indispensable.
Financial and technical means for post-displacement reconstruction differ, of course, between development-caused resettlement and conflict-caused refugee situations. In development-induced displacements, the state is accountable and amenable to provide resources for reconstruction; however, this is not the case when it comes to refugees. Yet, similarities exist: The essential components of reconstruction defined in the model are the same, and such similarities create terrain for experience transfer between post-conflict assistance and development-caused resettlement.
The Components of Reconstruction
The primary objective of any induced involuntary resettlement process should be to prevent impoverishment and to reconstruct and improve the livelihood of resettlers. In further examining the components of this reconstruction, we will follow a slightly different sequence than in the earlier discussion of risks. First, we will address the basic economic variables-land and employment-then, those referring to community reconstruction, housing, and social services.[13]
From Landlessness to Land-Based Reestablishment; and from Joblessness to Reemployment
Settling displaced people back on cultivatable land or in income-generating employment is the heart of the matter in reconstructing livelihoods. Success tends to be correlated with several options, such as identifying equivalent lands; bringing new lands into production through land recovery; crop intensification or a shift to more valuable crops; diversification of on-farm/off-farm activities; and use of project-created productive resources such as reservoirs, irrigated areas downstream, etc. Investments for creating sustainable new employment in the relocation zone are essential as well.
Agricultural land-settlement schemes have been frequently employed in Africa for creating a new productive basis both for resettlers and refugees. Lassailly-Jacob documents and compares such experiences in this volume (see also 1994, 1996; Eriksen 1999). In very densely populated areas, land scarcity requires creative approaches. To overcome land scarcity around the Shuikou Dam (China) project officials made a bold effort to convert unproductive hillsides and steep uplands around the reservoir into flat terraces for horticulture or into forested areas. Project-paid mechanical equipment was used for land recovery on a vast scale. Orchards were planted several years in advance of resettlers' relocation, so that trees were close to fruit bearing at relocation time.[14] The approach resulted in some 53,000 mu of fruit trees, 10,000 mu of tea plantations, 26,000 mu of bamboo trees, and more than 200,000 forest trees. This intensified agriculture, and changes in cropping patterns provided new land, work, and livelihood for about 20,000 resettlers. Their average income from the new crops is actually higher than the level anticipated in the project's original resettlement plan. Significantly, this improvement in the resettlers' economic situation occurred even though, on a per capita basis, farmland was reduced in the area from 0.98 mu to 0.32 mu. Complementary strategies and diversification benefited the remainder of Shuikou's resettlers; these included animal husbandry, including duck raising and reservoir fishing (6 percent of resettlers), jobs in the service sector and transportation (13.4 percent), jobs in new enterprises (19.3 percent) (World Bank/OED 1998). Resettlers' initiative in Saguling (Indonesia) saved the fertile topsoil about to be lost in the reservoir area, moving it to upland plots and increasing fertility (Costa-Pierce 1996).
Throughout the developing world empirical evidence confirms that replacing land with land-or in the terms of our model, "land-based resettlement"-is by far a more successful strategy than compensation in cash, which most often fails to lead to income restoration, let alone betterment. In addition, systematic field studies (McMillan and assoc. 1998) have demonstrated that if provided alone, new land is not enough for achieving success even in the case of voluntary settlement. Technical assistance and favorable social policy measures must accompany land-based resettlement.
Project support, combined with resettlers' initiative and resources can turn the loss of land into an opportunity for "farming the waters," in other words, for organizing fish farms in the new reservoirs. Through aquaculture many new reservoirs have been successfully turned into income sources. In Mexico's Aquamilpa reservoir area, fishing represented a mere 4.1 percent of productive activities among those to be affected in 1989 by the reservoir. But, by 1995, about 60.8 percent of that population was engaged in fishing activities. In the Cirata reservoir area (Indonesia) cage aquaculture workers earned about Rp. 56,000 more a month than rice field workers in the same area before the dam construction (Costa Pierce 1996).
The creation of national parks and biosphere reserves has repeatedly brought the threat of displacement to the door of resident people. Once again, virtually each empirically described case shows that problem resolution depends primarily on resolving land and employment issues. While eviction from traditional lands has been typically disastrous to those affected (West and Brenchin 1991), the few successful cases of physical relocation, such as that of the Mololtoja National Park in Swaziland, are those where good alternative lands had been allocated to the residents in a culturally sensitive manner (Ntshalintshali and McGurk 1991). These cases again confirm the centrality of land for productive reestablishment. An alternative for avoiding eviction is to combine recognition of land rights with employment creation in conservation works, helping resident groups to gain a vested interest in preservation as an income-generating source for themselves (Raval 1991, Wells and Brandon 1992).
Training resettlers in new skills is an effective strategy only if accompanied by actual employment resulting from firm market demand for new skills or from new investments. In the Dudichua Coal Project in India, 225 of 378 farmers displaced by the new mine were retrained and employed (one job per family), attaining earnings about eight times the average rural wage (World Bank 1995d). With limited project support, a group of brickmakers in Argentina (Yacyretá Project) has succeeded handsomely in resuming productive activities and improving their incomes (Mejia 1999, 2000). There are important unresolved dilemmas, however, regarding land-based reestablishment not addressed even in otherwise detailed policies, such as the issue of squatters or of the abuses in the overuse of the eminent domain principle. By definition, urban "squatters" reside on public lands, such as reserves of "right of way" lands and other public lots, often with the tacit acquiescence of municipal authorities. Squatters are also among the poorest groups of people. When such lands are needed for new projects, displacing squatters forcibly without providing an alternative location aggravates their poverty and only pushes them to become squatters elsewhere. Solutions that alleviate their condition, without encouraging squatting by others, are not easy and need policy and legislative elaboration.
A controversial issue is also the unlimited application of the eminent domain principle. There is much merit in the argument that, when large amounts of land must be given up by their historic owners for new and promising developments, these land owners should become direct co-owners of the new developments, and co-beneficiaries for as long as the new development remains productive. Or, alternatively, rather than expropriating such owners en masse,[15] the state could offer them the option of creating a leasing corporation that will maintain ownership of the land but would lease it to the project for, say, 99 years, or for the duration of the new development. This will make unnecessary the imposition of eminent domain, with its dire result of sudden land dispossession and likely chronic impoverishment. The trade-offs involved in such options (and in others) for all concerned, need to be weighed carefully, with flexibility for choosing them when appropriate and without the rigidity of pre-imposed recipes.
Another excellent option for recovery and improvement is resettling reservoir-displaced farmers on land newly irrigated downstream. Nonetheless, it is rarely used. Some states in India (Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and others) try to relocate oustees into command areas by enacting land-ceiling laws for newly irrigated land, a good administrative solution that should be reinforced by gaining the cooperation of command-area farmers. Overall, the combination of providing land and employment opportunities is an important strategy for recovery, particularly in those situations where neither one alone-land or employment-can ensure the full use of the labor resources of resettled families.
From Homelessness to House Reconstruction
Better shelter conditions are one of the relatively easy-to-achieve improvements in resettlers' livelihoods. However, this is much more difficult, in the case of refugees deprived of any compensation for their lost dwellings and assets.
From empirical research worldwide we distinguish at least two findings common in many cultures. First, it is repeatedly confirmed that impoverishment through worsened housing can be effectively prevented through fair recognition of housing reconstruction costs in the displacing project's budget. Second, throughout the world, resettlers tend to display a strong propensity to improve their living standards over past levels: They do so through incremental investments in kind (labor) and cash. Even amid the bleakness of uprootedness and the anger caused by low compensation, the immediacy of the need for family-shelter and the deep-seated aspiration for better lives often coalesce in an all-out effort to build, against all odds, larger and more durable homes. Resettlers use different strategies for this: mobilizing family labor, organizing mutual help, taking out loans to complement the compensation, shifting parts of the compensation for land towards home-building, and staggering reconstruction-laying out first foundations for larger houses and rebuilding them in stages, as the family masters resources and time.
Abundant empirical evidence about resettlers' investment behavior indicates that many use a part of the cash compensation received for their productive assets towards housing. They spend more than the house compensation proper for rebuilding a better dwelling than they had before.[16]
Actual improvements in family housing take one or more of the following forms: more square footage per capita; better quality housing materials, particularly for roofing; connection to services (electricity, water); safer sanitation facilities; space for house gardens; and others. Typical constraints on house reestablishment processes are longer average commuting distances and transportation costs in urban areas, affordability issues and long-term loan (mortgage) burdens, and differential entitlements for the housing of former squatters.
Gains in living standards through improved housing conditions, rather than just "restoration," have been documented in numerous projects: in Argentina, by the initial cohorts of resettlers from Yacyretá Dam; in Nepal, by the majority of those displaced by the construction of the Kali Gandaki dam and its access road (Khodka 1999, Sapkota 1999); in China, by those displaced by the Shuikou dam, for a total of additional 600,000 square meters, i.e., about 25 additional square meters per family (World Bank/OED 1998); in Kenya, by the resettlers from the Export Development project (World Bank 1995a); among others. In Shanghai, families displaced by a Sewerage Project were able to choose between state apartments offered for rent or private apartments made available to resettlers at only one-third of the construction cost (see also Reddy 2000, for the reconstruction of urban dwellings in India). Field studies have reported innovative approaches employed in house reconstruction, such as vouchers in the Republic of Korea. Daily transportation of resettlers by project vehicles to new sites in Togo's Nangbeto Project enabled them to expand the project-supplied core house-unit for each family, by adding additional rooms.[17] In sum, evidence worldwide confirms that homelessness is not an unavoidable risk of impoverishment; in fact, house reconstruction allows room not just for restoring prior standards of living, often very low, but for reconstructing at improved levels.
From Disarticulation to Community Reconstruction; from Marginalization to Social Inclusion; and from Expropriation to Restoration of Community Assets/Services
The reconstruction of communities, networks, and social cohesion is essential, yet seldom is it deliberately pursued in current government approaches. Planners tend to overlook these sociocultural and psychological (not just economic) dimensions, and are rarely concerned with facilitating reintegration within host populations or compensating community-owned assets.
The above three dimensions are partly distinct and partly overlapping. The reason for grouping them is to emphasize that manipulating model variables can achieve synergistic effects in reconstruction programs intent on using this potential synergy. Community reconstruction refers to group structures, including informal and formal institutions, while overcoming marginalization refers primarily to the individual family/household level. On-the-ground approaches would differ when villages or neighborhoods are created as new social units that need community assets and public services, or when fill?in operations insert scattered resettlers within preexisting communities, increasing pressure on existing services and host-owned common resources.
Recreating community structures and community-owned resources is a complex endeavor that cannot be accomplished overnight. Research on the Mahaweli resettlement program in Sri Lanka (Rodrigo 1991) has concluded that the initial allocation of resources to resettlers, including access to common property resources is virtually decisive for resettlers' successful "take off" at the new site. If access to resources is below a critical limit (on a per-family or per-capita basis) the take off is jeopardized, but if it provides a minimal but viable basis, post-resettlement development can build upon it and be successful. Thus, because of its incrementality over the family-owned resources, the access to community-owned resources, in some form or another, often becomes critical for overall successful reconstruction. Findings elsewhere have confirmed this conclusion.
Some of the most interesting experiences in the deliberate preservation of community structures or assistance for the formation of new community networks are reported from China, Ethiopia, Greece, and Mexico. By law, project authorities in China must negotiate with displacees simultaneously as individuals and as community groups. The government resources for financing resettlement are divided in some proportion between households (for individual family purposes) and community bodies represented by township committees (for group purposes). Community-owned assets lost in displacement are valued and financially compensated by the state to enable the reconstruction of the same, or of comparable, community assets, which contribute to the livelihoods of resettlers (Shi and Hu 1994). Thus, by design, some patterns of the social organization of the displaced village are empowered to have a function in resettlement, and thus to continue their existence and role. Furthermore, the Chinese approach is also unique in that it fosters community solidarity in sharing some of the losses (particularly land) and requires some redistribution of non-affected village lands used by the non-displaced farmers to the village members who are displaced and lost land.[18]
Enabling the rebirth of community institutions is paramount for successful resettlement and livelihood reconstruction. From Ethiopia, Woldeselassie (2000) reports the profoundly positive effects of restoring religious village associations and customs after displacement. Organized collective help to the most vulnerable and marginalized community members accelerates re-inclusion. And the experience of Greek resettlers, as analyzed by Hirschon (2000) shows that in re-articulation and reintegration processes, common cultural values can overcome material deprivations, economic disadvantage, and inadequate physical provisions. Thus, community re-articulation is not necessarily a function of regaining economic wellbeing, it can precede it. Mexico's Aquamilpa resettlement program not only restored prior community services, but also built several new community facilities (Johns 1996). Such experiences are precious especially because the restoration of access to community resources tends to occur less frequently than the replacement of private assets, leaving room for competition and conflict between resettlers and hosts. Overall, all these three facets of the reconstruction processes require institution building and concurrence from the host area population.
From Food Insecurity to Adequate Nutrition; and from Increased Morbidity to Better Health Care
Nutrition levels and health will depend in the long run on progress in resettlers' economic recovery (see above, land and/or employment). But in the short run, reconstruction requires that sudden disruptions in food supply and risks to health and life are arrested through immediate counteraction, even before full economic reconstruction is undertaken. Borrowing from successful experiences of organized assistance to refugees (emergency relief) can be highly effective for offsetting immediate nutritional and health risks to resettlers and for focusing on most vulnerable groups (children, the elderly, pregnant women, etc.). Sustainable reconstruction, however, requires long-term planning as well, beyond immediate relief measures, together with information and education, to foster needed changes in resettlers' behavior and their ability to cope with the circumstances of the new habitat.
Existing evidence indicates that the food scarcity risks are more readily recognized by resettlement agencies than the health-related risks incurred by resettlers. Long-term planning is seldom done. Resettlers' coping response tends also to address first the immediately perceivable food needs. A World Health Organization (WHO) study of four countries in the lower Mekong basin (Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) showed that the most effective long-term strategy for reducing the adverse health impacts of dam reservoirs is institution building in the health and sanitation sectors. The study recommended that all four countries incorporate "a human health component into all integrated river basin development projects" as a safeguard against higher risks of morbidity and mortality (Mather, Sornmani and Keola 1994). Togo's Nangbeto Dam project offered a replicable example of such good practice: It introduced a continuous health-monitoring studies program throughout the construction years. This helped protect the resettlers' and host population's health (Michard, Adam and Aziablé 1992).
The constitutive elements of livelihood reconstruction have been addressed above in sub-clusters, and it is important to repeat that the model inherently emphasizes their interdependence. Therefore, optimizing the reconstruction strategy requires pursuing these directions simultaneously, with internal priorities dictated by local project circumstances.
Overall, the reconstruction part of the IRR model provides the broad chart for pursuing the reestablishment of resettlers along several clear indicators. The evidence quoted demonstrates that
(a) Impoverishment risks can be successfully attacked and reversed;
(b) Livelihood reconstruction, however difficult, is feasible along the specific directions identified; and
(c) The body of replicable positive experiences is growing continuously.
Forward to Necessary Improvements in Current Resettlement Practices
Backward to Major Impoverishment Risks in Displacement
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[12] Such reports, for instance, came from India (Thangaraj 1996) and the Philippines (Spiegel 1997); others report using this model in field supervision of resettlement operations (Downing 1996a, 1996b; Mathur and Marsden 1998); for other applications, see also the last section of this chapter.
[13] We believe that considerably more empirical research is needed to identify and disseminate existing positive experiences in reconstructing livelihoods. Sociologists and anthropologists have been more concerned with describing and deploring displacement's pathologies than resettlement's successes. Because to date good practice has been less frequent than failure, gathering more knowledge on the existing successful experiences is a priority.
[14] Personal observations, Shuikou (1986, 1988, 1990, 1994).
[15] Historically, when the principle of eminent domain was initially crafted, the lawmakers envisaged expropriations limited to isolated individuals or small group. Given the large-size expropriations required by some infrastructural equipment today, and the absence in law of commensurate remedies designed for full communities rather than isolated families, questioning the limits of applying eminent domain principles is an issue ripe for open discussion.
[16] Such shift of meager compensation resources from restoring productive assets (such as land) to restoring consumption assets the (house and its equipment) may restrict the family's income generating capacity for a while. Its rationale requires cultural and economic analysis; it may, or may not, be vindicated in the long run. Values and aspirations, and factors as family size and structure, intervene heavily in guiding resettlers' decisions. My field research in China (Shuikou Dam, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1994) and Nepal (Kali Gandaki Dam area) found that some resettlers deliberately rebuild large houses with the goal of using them not only as "consumption assets," but also as structures apt to yield income through partial lease, use as shops, roadside restaurants, etc. (see also Sapkota 1999).
[17] Personal observation, Togo, 1989.
[18] These interpretations are based on personal observations of actual resettlement practice in several provinces of China, and on discussions with community leaders and members, central and local officials, etc.
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